Getting Too Close

Offering up a dose of humility before reminding us that he correctly predicted a John McCain win some time ago, Tom Schaller reflects:

Given how much more closely I’ve followed Democratic politics the past four years, I’ve been embarrassed at times by my assessments or predictions of the race for the Democratic nomination.

I think following politics closely may actually be an impediment to forecasting. People who don't follow politics at all can make mistakes because they wind up lacking awareness of relevant facts about the candidates (Giuliani is pro-choice) or general principles (the GOP is the pro-life party) that you need to know in order to predict with a healthy measure of accuracy. But beyond some general level of awareness of who's who and what usually happens, paying close attention tends to overly bias one toward the view that something surprising and interesting will happen. Now it may prove to be the case that 2008 is, on the Democratic side, that unusual year in which something surprising and interesting does happen. But even if Obama wins, it'll still be the case that every cycle some group of clever people is making the case for why this year is the year and it almost never is.

Comments

Covering yr ass for predicting HRC?

Posted by M | February 14, 2008 10:25 AM

David Corn also predicted McCain would win the nomination, probably at around the same time.

I think people who predicted Romney were being reasonable. McCain got lucky. It could have gone to Romney if a few contingencies had gone differently. No one else could plausibly have won it though.

Posted by Jim W | February 14, 2008 10:33 AM

here's a prediction, since we are in the business of making fool's of ourselves.

the superdelegate stuff is being overblown for a simple reason:

they will if fact decide the nomination and from a logical standpoint, that probably means that they will go inevitably tilt it towards the "popular" will candidate even without a concerted effort to do so and despite all of the hand-wringing. Here is my reasoning:

so far delegates have shown three preferences:

hillary clinton
barack obama
the "will of the people"

If at least 25% of the superdelegates choose "will of the people", then the non-"will of the people" candidate would have to have something like 70% of the remaining super-delegates. Even with HRC's current advantage among supers, she doesn't have that big a lead. The numbers work out whether HRC or BO have the pledged delegate, popular vote, etc. lead.

Posted by chris brandow | February 14, 2008 10:36 AM

I predicted Romney on the grounds that he was the Republican Party establishment candidate, and the party establishment (of either party, though especially the Republicans) usually gets its way. I am still surprised to be proven wrong. It's actually rather inspirational to see, my hopes for November notwithstanding.

Posted by Richard Hershberger | February 14, 2008 10:41 AM

Elections are hard to predict, the way stock price movements are hard to predict because there are opposing sides of professionals working against each other and there is no way to tell which side will win almost until it happens.

One billion dollar institution says google is overpriced at 100 and sells. The other says google is underpriced at the same price and buys. Which is right? You have to wait and see. The two billion dollar institutions obviously don't agree themselves.

But that is very different from saying less institutional support for deciding the value of a stock would _improve_ one's stock valuing ability.

A year away from primaries, Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Gore and Richardson all have people who think they have the best shot. Well educated, smart, highly informed people in all cases. Not billion dollar institutions, but people who analyze tremendous amounts of data every day all day for a living disagree among each other.

It isn't possible to predict who is right about which candidate, but it also is not the case that less information would make a better predictor.

Posted by Arnold Evans | February 14, 2008 10:41 AM

I suspect we'll see a greater frequency of surprising things in future election cycles, as fer the Feiler Faster thesis. This election I'd argue that three candidates--Obama, Huckabee and Paul--had signficantly larger impacts than they would have in previous elections, due to the internet, increased pace of media, etc. So it may become safer to predict that a given year is the year.

Posted by Ben | February 14, 2008 10:46 AM

Keep it coming. Penn's remarks remind you of an 8-year-old who is a poor sport.

That one doesn't count!
I wasn't paying attention!
No fair!
You cheated!
That was a foul!

By the by, why would Texas count? Is she expecting to get it in the general election?

Posted by jmc | February 14, 2008 10:47 AM

Keep it coming. Penn's remarks remind you of an 8-year-old who is a poor sport.

That one doesn't count!
I wasn't paying attention!
No fair!
You cheated!
That was a foul!

By the by, why would Texas count? Is she expecting to get it in the general election?

Posted by jmc | February 14, 2008 10:48 AM

In defense of Matt's theory, I did better at predicting the primary results when I was traveling in India and had almost no contact with the American media. Once I started to really pay attention to the American media, my predictions got a lot worse. When I was in India, everyone wanted to know who'd win the presidency, and I always told them 'Obama.' I started to question that when I got back to the States, but it's looking like a better prediction now.

Posted by fostert | February 14, 2008 10:52 AM

OT - I like this blog, but it is the slowest loading web site of the dozen or so I regularly read. Sometimes it does not load at all - after a long wait I get a blank page with "done" at the bottom.

Matthew - you should ask The Atlantic if they can speed things up.

Posted by ESaund | February 14, 2008 10:52 AM

Don't do it Matt...

Do not change your prediction.

Please.

Look - you called the SuperBowl for the Giants - that was huge. You've got prediction chits in the vault for a while.

Just say it again, you "predict Hillary will win the nomination of the Democratic party."

Cheers.

/kidding - but seriously, however tempting, don't change your prediction until after the convention, please.

Posted by SoCalJustice | February 14, 2008 10:55 AM

"I think following politics closely may actually be an impediment to forecasting."

Single weirdest assertion in the history of this blog.

Posted by Petey | February 14, 2008 10:59 AM

I think people who predicted Romney were being reasonable.

I felt that people who predicted Romney were very insulated from the reality of what evangelicals are like. Romney was the pick of Republican "thinkers" and all my Republican friends who grew up in the northeast. I knew that they were in no way comparable to the evangelicals I knew in college and afterwards who made up the Republican base who really, really, really don't want anything to do with Mormons.

The reason our predictions are better when we're not paying attention is that we are much more in tune with the way the average voter is thinking, whose voting decisions basically come down to, "which of these candidates have you seen on television with the volume off the most?" As that question a year ago, and the answer would be "McCain and Clinton."

Posted by Tyro | February 14, 2008 11:03 AM

This points to the lack of true wonkiness that a lot of pseudo-intellectual wonks have, kind of like the "I didn't know anyone who voted for Nixon" or whatever it was quote from 1972. A lot of people who are really interested in politics forget this makes us all dorks, unlike the majority of Americans and voters. What people see on the local news and how political issues get covered in non-political magazines (women's magazines, GQ) and midbrow magazines (Time) affect voting behavior than a well-crafted argument on even the most popular blogs or in the pages of obscure academic journals.

Posted by Reality Man | February 14, 2008 11:04 AM

Actually, Matt's prediction for HRC may turn out to be correct after all. Or to put it another way: Don't count her out just yet.

Sure, her campaign has fired a lot of people. But it seems to be refocusing on retail politics, which should be a good sign for them. She's opened up lots of offices, she's even contesting WI to keep the race from slipping away from her, and the latest TX polls look good.

Another point is that Obama supporters appear to have so used to a steady diet of 20+ wins that expect to see more in the pipeline.

People, those Potomac wins happened because Clinton wasn't seriously contesting those states. Now that she is, expect to see her brand name and demographic advantages kick in. Sure, Obama gains from increased exposure to voters, but has this really been tested against an actively campaigning Clinton?

Posted by plum | February 14, 2008 11:08 AM

Another factor is that McCain's campaign did get totally wiped out by his support for that big immigration proposal.

But American voters---and not just the Republican base!---are so totally ignorant, pay such little attention to politics, and have such ultra-short-term memories, that after a couple of months or so they'd forgotten the whole thing, and didn't have any real problem voting for him as a "new face" in the race.

I think a somewhat similar thing happened on the Democratic side in 2004, when after having been written off and disappearing as a major candidate for six months or so, Kerry suddenly reappeared in Iowa as a "fresh face" and got lots of enthusiam from voters who were looking for an "outsider" who wasn't just another longtime Democratic politician...

Posted by RKU | February 14, 2008 11:14 AM

"The reason our predictions are better when we're not paying attention is that we are much more in tune with the way the average voter is thinking"

Of course, smart folks who follow politics closely calculate in the way low-information voters think.

That's what following electoral politics closely is all about...

Posted by Petey | February 14, 2008 11:17 AM

As that question a year ago, and the answer would be "McCain and Clinton."

Wouldn't it have been Giuliani and Clinton? Yeah, he's pro-choice, but he promised "strict constitutionalists". Clinton voted for the AUMF, never apologized, and kept making threatening noises about Iran.

Posted by Consumatopia | February 14, 2008 11:26 AM

Consumatopia, point taken on Giuliani. My analogy was inept. However, if one were a member of the Republican base, voting for a thrice-divorced former mayor of NYC made as much sense as voting for a Mormon-- it just wasn't going to happen.

Posted by Tyro | February 14, 2008 11:31 AM

Oops, make that "thrice-married." He hasn't been divorced a third time (yet).

Posted by Tyro | February 14, 2008 11:33 AM

"Of course, smart folks who follow politics closely calculate in the way low-information voters think."

That's assuming smart folks who follow politics understand how low-information voters think.

Posted by mad6798j | February 14, 2008 11:34 AM

I recently read some research in a political research class that I think agrees with Matt's idea. The paper was based on polls asking people to predict who would win an election, as opposed to asking them who they were going to vote for. It covered presidential elections from 1956-1996.

Basic features like the person's overall level of education improved prediction. Strong participation in politics and interest in the campaign, however, were not significant and if anything they made predictions worse. The most significant factor was that if you had strong party identification with the losing party your prediction was worse.

The study "Voters as forecasters" is published in International Journal of Forecasting 15 (1999) 175-184, authors Michael Lewis-Beck and Charles Tien.

Posted by Pamoya | February 14, 2008 11:39 AM

""I think following politics closely may actually be an impediment to forecasting."

Single weirdest assertion in the history of this blog.

Posted by Petey | February 14, 2008 10:59 AM"

Exhibit A proving MY's point for him.

Posted by Reality Man | February 14, 2008 11:39 AM

"That's assuming smart folks who follow politics understand how low-information voters think."

If they don't understand how low-information voters think, then they can't be smart folks about electoral politics.

Posted by Petey | February 14, 2008 12:25 PM

If they don't understand how low-information voters think, then they can't be smart folks about electoral politics.

Posted by Petey | February 14, 2008 12:25 PM

Ah, yes, those beer track voters who are going to go overwhelmingly for Edwards, WAIT, NO!, Clinton, they're definitely going to go for Clinton because all they care about is mandates. Beer trackers vote mandates, WAIT, except in Maryland--they don't care about mandates in Maryland and I can definitely tell you why.

Posted by southpaw | February 14, 2008 12:35 PM

"Ah, yes, those beer track voters who are going to go overwhelmingly for Edwards, WAIT, NO!, Clinton, they're definitely going to go for Clinton because all they care about is mandates. Beer trackers vote mandates, WAIT, except in Maryland--they don't care about mandates in Maryland and I can definitely tell you why."

UHC matters to me as a progressive. I've never claimed UHC was going to be enough on its own to swing the nomination race.

You conflate what I'd like to see accomplished in American politics with my prognostication abilities. I'm up significantly in Intrade this cycle, which is how I measure my crystal balling.

If folks had bet my three oft-repeated touts in these pages from fall 2007 - go long on McCain at 20 to 1, go long on Edwards at 20-1, and go short on Giuliani risking 3 to gain 2 - they'd be up twenty dollars for every dollar risked.

Posted by Petey | February 14, 2008 12:48 PM

Now it may prove to be the case that 2008 is, on the Democratic side, that unusual year in which something surprising and interesting does happen.

How can anyone say that this is not already the case? Is this not the most surprising and interesting Democratic primary since the 60s at least? The two top candidates are a woman and an African American. And the race is neck and neck with more than half the states already having voted. Exactly what sort of surprises is MY looking for?

Posted by Rob Mac | February 14, 2008 1:23 PM

Its tough to criticize Petey's prognostication efforts this time around. The McCain and Giuliani bets look brilliant, in retrospect, though I would have made them myself. And it's tough to argue with taking Edward at 20-1.

I think the point to be made here is that there are very few political observers who are not just smart enough but able to reason about these things in a very detached way that they can predict what is going to happen. First, I would say that a lot of these guys are not very smart. I think MY is, but I think he is lacking in the detachment area. Even there, he actually makes a really good effort, frequently posting about how we shouldn't get too caught up in the frenzy of the moment months ahead of the primaries or whatever, but knowing you need to be detached and actually accomplishing it are two different things.

Posted by mpowell | February 14, 2008 1:41 PM